


A Comrade, A Friend

by anomalyanatoly



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: Affairs, And that Molokov/Anatoly don't have a father-son relation here, Character Study, Chess in Concert (2008), F/M, Introspection, Just so we're aware, M/M, More like a knife to each other's neck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:01:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29935194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomalyanatoly/pseuds/anomalyanatoly
Summary: BANGKOK. // Anatoly knows the tricks Molokov is playing. Even as Svetlana is begging him to return home, she's another pawn to cater to Anatoly's softer side. He should know there is no outsmarting a chess player—he should know that Svetlana is not his soft spot.
Relationships: Alexander Molokov/Anatoly Sergievsky, Anatoly Sergievsky/Florence Vassy (mentioned), Anatoly Sergievsky/Svetlana Sergievsky
Kudos: 1





	A Comrade, A Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Unequal power dynamic aside, please indulge me in this ship, I am BEGGING.

“Come home, Anatoly,” Svetlana pleads.

It gripped him unexpectedly, the words of a desperate mother—wife. They reach his ears like a siren calling out to unknowing sailors at sea and it pulls him closer to her. He begins to understand her motive and for a second he loves her. He begins to understand her so deeply he felt soft compassion for the woman.

In the crevices of her words, he can see the shadows slipping between; “If not for me, then your children, come home” and it shakes Anatoly so thoroughly that he felt the hiccups in his lungs. His tongue stiffens at the idea of compliance. It rattles him more that the words in Svetlana’s mouth are not her own and that he would be spending the rest of his life regretting this decision.

Molokov, the fool, the unprecedented bastard, and it is so very like him to use a weapon to pry open his heart for his profit. It’s not his wife’s fault she got caught in the treacherous chess circuit because he, too, was used as a weapon against her. What right does he have to lash out at her?

_At ease,_ Anatoly tells himself. And the transient thought of Molokov—making a fool of both of them, pitting them face-to-face—he loves him too. It’s a revelation that rung true longer than he and Florence. He loved his former second and now he wants his heart beating in his hands. Should Molokov reach his fingers in the cavity of his chest, Anatoly would wipe him clean of blood.

_Would I do such a thing for Svetlana? For Florence?_ He caught himself thinking in territories he shouldn’t. But should Molokov kill him at night, he is sure he wouldn’t be able to meet his eye. “What will become of us after this?” he asks Svetlana, but if Molokov were listening, he is asking him as well, as a comrade—as a friend.

His lover, his wife, tired with this game just as much as he is, says, “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” he says. “But I am not throwing this match.”


End file.
